Volume 3, October, 2015

SPECIAL FEATURES IN SUPPLY OF "CITY BREAKS" AS TOURIST PRODUCT IN DESTINATIONS SOFIA AND SKOPJE

Atanas Kazakov and Vera Nikolova
Pages: 1-14

ABSTRACT - Short term holidays organized in urban environment, at weekends are known as "City Breaks". These products are developed quite recently – at the beginning of XXI st century. Their appearance came as answer to population's mobility increase. It happened everywhere in the world, mostly in well-developed countries. Important factors which influenced the contemporary development of city breaks are: sharp improvement of transport infrastructure in Europe as a whole, as well as the changing demand oriented towards shorter travel holidays.
The development of this product is giving the opportunity for diversification of the tourist supply. It puts an accent on cultural heritage which is concentrated in cities and places for entertainment. Highest popularity "City breaks" have among young single tourists and seniors from the age group 55+. These are one of the most solvent population groups. People are well educated. They have higher demands towards cultural experience and entertainment. At last they have enough free time.
The main purpose of the article is to examine the possibilities of Sofia and Skopje to develop of this tourist product as well individually as in combined tourist packages. Their advantages are defined from their proximity on culture and language and from their common history in certain periods of time. Their function as capital cities and the small distance between them are additional conditions for possible combined supply of "City Breaks".